Sunday night. The writing was outstanding, the characters very well developed, but as is often the case I was bothered by several characters. Nate, Victoria, and especially Ms. North.

I am always made uncomfortable reading about a character being forced to do things against their will, especially when humiliation is part of the deal. It's a personal thing of mine - I swore an oath to protect the innocent against people like this, wherever in the world we found them, and I spent a good deal of my adult life fighting against this.

Stories which include this type of behavior always result in discomfort for me - sometimes to the extent that I end up having to put the story down until I can calm myself down. Tears, anger, and the urge to go shoot something are side effects of this type of thing.

I know the intent was to create characters which the reader would loathe, and like all good authors you definitely did that! Your writing stirred very deep emotions within me; unfortunately they are emotions I would rather not feel anymore.

I'm sorry you found Shannon's Course so disturbing. There were so many bad people in that story.

I view life as a constant bell curve of human activities with a balance on either side of "good" and "bad" people.

In Shannon's Course the people in the middle facilitated the bad actions of the "bad" people.

It was a cautionary tale of why it isn't enough to have good people to offset bad people. Everyone who isn't a bad person has to call out those who are bad.

If you aren't part of the solution you're part of the problem.

Shannon's mother and grandmother could have stopped things quite quickly. The Principal was horribly at fault. Shannon's friend's should have stood up to what was happening. Within the murder mystery story arc it was very apparent that bad people caused a bad situation to fester for personal gain.

This is a story that reflects my life. I've been horribly wronged by at least a dozen people who caused me to lose $millions and suffer incredible public humiliation. It wasn't so much the actions of bad people that hurt me as much as the inaction of dozens of "good" people who could have stood up and been counted.

I'm sorry it wasn't your cup of tea. I hope that within the over one hundred stories I've posted for free online you will find many, many that are uplifting. If you would like, I will send you a list of stories that have a strong positive message.